


Cleaning Up

by MyriahKamm



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, ReiHaru Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3161483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyriahKamm/pseuds/MyriahKamm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rei finds something interesting while cleaning up Haru's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleaning Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ReiHaru Week!  
> Day 5 Prompt: Beautiful

Rei can’t believe how much of an utter  _mess_  Haru’s house is when he steps through the door. He thought he was over this particular little habit, but all he can think is  _It’s not beautiful_.

So he begins cleaning things up. Haru isn’t due back from his outing with Makoto for another couple of hours—he told Rei to just drop by and make himself comfortable as he waits—so Rei has plenty of time. He organizes the magazines, mostly consisting of swimwear catalogs and swimming editions of sports titles, in alphabetical order and places them all on a nearby shelf.

Art supplies are also scattered around the floor. Colored and plain graphite pencils alike are strewn about the place haphazardly. Rei gathers them up and spends the next twenty minutes or so organizing them according to shade and hue in their box. It’s satisfying to be able to put everything precisely in its place, satisfying to be able to clean things up like this.

_Haru will be so pleased,_  Rin thinks to himself with a smile.  _He won’t have to put any of this away, now. We’ll be able to just enjoy an evening alone together._

He gets the majority of the living room cleaned up until a lone sketchbook remains on the floor. Rei picks it up and, unable to help himself, flips it open. He’s shocked by what he sees.

The first page sports a full-body sketch of Rei done in plain pencil. Calling it “plain” pencil seems wrong, though, because it’s  _gorgeous_. Rei can’t tear his eyes away from it for the longest time as he studies every bit of the picture of himself: the perfect curve of his bicep, the valley created by his hip bone, the shading that catches the glint of the sun off his glasses expertly.

When he finally turns the page, he finds more sketches on the next few pages, these less refined and perfect, but no less beautiful than the first. They’re action sketches. One shows Rei diving off the starting blocks at the pool. Another depicts him running along the beach, complete with specks of sand being kicked up behind him. Still another, Rei standing next to Nagisa and laughing.

Many pages of the sketchbook are covered with these sketches, and all of Rei. The last page, though, is by far the best.

The entire page is a large, colored portrait of Rei, wearing a violet polo with a blue butterfly image on the shoulder. In the portrait, Rei is holding out his hand; settled on his palm is a large black swallowtail butterfly with vibrant blues, reds, and greens playing across its bottom wings. A  _papilio bianor_ , if Rei isn’t mistaken: a Chinese peacock. The coloration of the butterfly is absolutely perfect, capturing the near iridescent quality of the pigmentation of this particular species.

Rei feels tears fill his eyes as he stares at this most perfect piece of artwork. The fact that  _he_  is the focus of it is simply breathtaking. He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes quickly to keep from crying on the absolutely beautiful portrait. When he returns his glasses to their place, he looks up to see Haru standing in the doorway, grocery bags clutched in his hands.

"It was supposed to be a surprise," Haru says softly, gesturing toward the sketchbook.

"H-Haru…it’s beautiful!" Rei stammers, smiling broadly at his boyfriend.

"Come help me with dinner while I figure out your punishment for snooping," Haru mutters, heading over toward the kitchen with the grocery bags.

Rei closes the sketchbook and sets it on top of the nearby bookshelf almost reverently before making his way into the kitchen. He decides that any playful punishment Haru manages to concoct for him will definitely be worth having seen something so gorgeous.


End file.
